Aces High: A Memoir of Trauma Recovery & Emotional Resilience (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781069966100)

"An inspiring, intellectually rigorous memoir that bridges personal adversity with trauma psychology." - OnlineBookClub Reader Review

Trauma leaves marks-on the body and in the mind from the story a person tells about themselves. Penny Hodgson knows this intimately. But she also knows something people in the trauma field rarely say out loud: healing requires letting go of the identity trauma tries to assign.

Part raw personal memoir, part analytical dissection of recovery, Aces High transforms lived experience into a practical, forward-moving case study.

Penny shares the parts of her life she has never spoken aloud-the childhood surgeries that reshaped her body, the sexual abuse that fractured her sense of safety, the family dysfunction that shaped her beliefs, and the medical dismissal that nearly cost her her life. Her ACE score is six, but her story is far more complex than a number.

Through research, reflection, and unflinching honesty, Penny traces how trauma shaped her physiology, her relationships, and her worldview-and how she slowly learned to interrupt the cycle. She challenges the cultural drift toward safetyism and the growing pressure to claim a victim identity, offering instead a grounded, compassionate path toward personal responsibility, emotional frequency alignment, and personal sovereignty.